The ACA Integrity
I love the AMA Morning Rounds e-newsletter. It gives me so much fodder for this blog. Take this one, for example:
The New York Times reports investigators from the Government Accountability Office “said Thursday that they had discovered many errors in eligibility decisions under the Affordable Care Act that had led the government to pay for duplicate coverage for some people and an excessive share of costs for others.” Some people were receiving subsidies for private coverage while they were already enrolled in Medicaid. In other cases, “the investigators said, the government is probably overpaying because it cannot always distinguish between newly eligible beneficiaries under the Affordable Care Act and those eligible under the old rules.” In testimony prepared for a House hearing today, the GAO “said the Obama administration needed to adopt much stronger safeguards to ensure the integrity of programs providing coverage to millions of Americans.”
Thank you, AMA, not only for sharing this piece but for giving the approval for the ACA. Let’s see, duplicate coverage, excess share of costs for others, overpaying, can’t distinguish eligibility, and need for more safeguards. Sounds about right for the government. I know how they can fix it. All they need to do is tax me more and let the insurance companies raise my rates by 30%. Oh wait, they are doing that already.
“no interoperability for EMR (as if that would really help at this point anyway)”
This “interoperability” trope really is a red herring, isn’t it, intended to distract docs from the reality that EHRs totally suck, and for the foreseeable future will continue to totally suck, in every possible way.
What kind of moron thinks that having immediate access (and the liability that goes with it) to thousands and thousands of pages of worthless cut and pasted notes is going to make your day go better? (Answer: starts with A and ends with P)
” Let’s see, duplicate coverage, excess share of costs for others, overpaying, can’t distinguish eligibility, and need for more safeguards. ”
And—
Still millions without insurance, those that have it can’t afford it, doctors are over-worked and underpaid, doctors spending more time on charting, coding and documentation than patient care,
still not enough access for patients, ERs still overloaded, no interoperability for EMR (as if that would really help at this point anyway), plenty of med school applicants but not enough residencies, costs for medical care still alarmingly high and do not appear to be decreasing anytime soon. I could go on…
Wow, what a great law!